Alhturel
The alhturel is the largest of the predatory rels, and has an 8-metre wingspan. It mainly lives in the creed-plains, where it feeds on the abundant flocks of quekrel and the occasional baby rihglid or tuareteh. It has been sighted world-wide, though, and is the only non-sapient Ageriulian species in which a healthy individual has actively hunted an israphel. Biology Alhturels have a large skull and a broad, muscular neck. They have hollow, sandless skeletons, like all rels. Their wings are large and broad, enabling it to travel great distances, and the lower legs have been transformed into vicious meat-hooks. On its chest area, there is a large, backwards-pointing spike. Alhturels have large scrafs, enabling them to pick up scents from far away. Alhturels have large, powerful jaws that can crush bones and tear sinew. They have a relatively long tail. Behaviour Alhturels, although usually alone, will often interact socially with other individuals if they happen to find them. This may involve play behaviour (like dogfights and catch-the-animal), or it could be mating if it's a male and female. Females raise their young in a similar manner to a quekrel, although their young are looked after for much longer (about 2 years, usually). If an alhturel becomes grounded, it can use its muscular wings to launch itself back into the air, and will often use its leg-hooks to help. These leg-hooks, though, are usually used for a much more sinister reason. They will scoop up smaller organisms, and impale larger organisms, which are then smashed into the chest and impaled on the chest spike. If both impalements miss, it will drop the organism, and then scoop it back up until it is either broken from the falls or impaled. When it is disabled, the alhturel will make sure it is firmly impaled on one leg-spike, and then eat it on the wing with its powerful beak. It prefers not to eat the bones, although it usually eats large portions of it anyway to strip the carcass bare of meat. It will discard the leftovers by simply dropping them. Urahobs have been taken by these massive rels before. In captivity Alhturels are the easiest of the three great Ageriul land predators (the others being the alhtuputh and robeka) to keep in captivity, although it is still no easy task. To keep them happy, at least 50 metres of vertical height are needed, although much heigher heights are reccomended. A better-than-average exhibit is reccomended to have at least 120 vertical metres of space. Horizontal space should be three times the vertical space, at the least. Automated feeders should be used, with the best holder for the food being a large chunk of meat (although the more whole, the better) suspended from a strong elastic object. A small lake or river should be added to the exhibit, for drinking and preening, and they will need a hammock-like bed suspended from four or more poles so that they can sleep (in the wild, they would sleep on the wing, but there is not enough room for that behaviour in an enclosed space). They will not sleep on the ground, due to having burrowing predators in their native habitat. The exhibit should be cleaned using automated means as well. No one should be allowed in without a vehicle, due to the fact that armour strong enough to stop it from attacking may damage the alhturel, and the person may be dropped to death anyway. An alhturel attacked and killed a group of Zyrothan teens that had been dared to enter its exhibit, leaving a grisly scene of mangled, half-eaten corpses and a family of rather full alhturels that had landed to feed on the remains. This was documented on the ''Dwaman Award''s. These alhturels later tried to escape the exhibit to attack more visitors. The adults were unsuccessful, but the young individual managed to get out. It seriously injured both itself and a Salsene. Nithland subspecies There is a subspecies of alhturel that live in the temperate nithlands. Unlike other alhturel, they usually sleep on the ground and hunt large prey. They are believed to have become lost in a storm, and then made a living for themselves on the mainland. They are the largest and most aggressive of all alhturels, and have killed one of just about every species they have encountered (excluding aaarks). These include Irkaputh, Urahob, Zyrothans, Alxen, alhtuputh, israphel, most other species of the nithlands and, most shockingly, an escaped terrortooth. This was caught on a camera of the team that was sent to kill the TT. The alhturel collided with the TT at the bottom of its stoop, headbutting it about four metres. The TT then took off, and attempted to outfly the other predator. The alhturel, though, was a more skilled flyer, due to flying most of its life. It repeatedly collided with the terrortooth, dazing it, until the dolosid could fly no longer. It was then impaled, gnawed on, and dropped from a great height, killing it. Notes If the bit about the terrortooth isn't approved of, please delete that bit and the note. If it is approved of, please delete this note. Category:Ageriul Category:Animals Category:Carnivores Category:Non-sapient creatures